


To be Safe

by TroubleIWant



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 07:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1680383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TroubleIWant/pseuds/TroubleIWant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles remembers very well the hushed gossip spreading like wildfire in the days after the Hale incident, the news articles he snuck peeks at and all the gory details. Their own small town Bonnie and Clyde, Kate smiling like the psychopath she is in every shot they have of her, Derek glowering into the camera in that hypnotically handsome way some mass murderers seem to have. Cheekbones that’d almost make you forget the man burned all 20 members of his own family alive for the insurance money.</p>
<p>“Promise me you’ll be safe,” Sheriff Stilinski says. “I honestly don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	To be Safe

“I want you to be safe,” Sheriff Stilinski insists, elbows on his big, official desk and fingers steepled. There’s no mistaking that it’s the Sheriff talking, as well as the dad, so Stiles already knows that blowing this curfew off in a last hurrah for teenage rebellion isn’t an option.

“Come on,” he groans all the same, out of habit more than anything. “I’m only in town for like a _week_ before I have to go back for finals! I want to go out with Scott and Lydia and I dunno, maybe have some _fun_? Call me crazy.” He’s slouched down so far he’s practically horizontal in the chair, fidgeting with the “best Sheriff” paperweight the teacher’s association sent last Christmas.

“Stiles,” the Sheriff says with a bit more edge. “If Kate and Derek really are back in town, we could be looking at much worse than boring. I’m serious, son, these are dangerous people. You know what happened to Mr. Harris, and there are two more possible victims we’re still looking for. And that’s just for this month.”

“I know,” Stiles sighs. And he does, he remembers very well the hushed gossip spreading like wildfire in the days after the Hale incident, the news articles he snuck peeks at and all the gory details. Their own small town Bonnie and Clyde, Kate smiling like the psychopath she is in every shot they have of her, Derek glowering into the camera in that hypnotically handsome way some mass murderers seem to have. Cheekbones that’d almost make you forget the man burned all 20 members of his own family alive for the insurance money.

“Promise me you’ll be safe,” Stilinski says, just the dad this time. “I honestly don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.” Worry carves the wrinkles around his eyes deeper, and Stiles realizes how much more careworn his father looks all of a sudden, feels a pang of something like loss in his gut at how they’re both getting older.

“Yeah, okay,” he says. After all, they’re the only family either of them has got, now. “I can stay in tonight. See you after work.”

“That’s my boy,” the Sheriff says, brightening up. “You call me on the hour, okay? Every hour.”

Stiles waves a non-committal hand over his shoulder.

 

***

 

He gets back to the house a bit after 8pm, with big plans to watch the first Transformers movie, eat a microwave dinner and a metric ton of junk food, and finish off the night with some good, old-fashioned internet porn. It can be strange to be in his old room, which hasn’t changed a bit since he went to Berkeley two years back, but the DVDs are where he left them at least.

He and Scott used to love wasting whole summer days on bad action flicks and junk food, back in their ill spent youth. He pulls out his phone to shoot off a quick “hey, remember when…” text when he feels a cold prickle of anxiety on the back of his neck and a smooth voice says, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Stile’s breath catches in his throat. It’s Derek Hale. Even before he turns, he knows; The big bad wolf’s actually come for him now, and he’s anything but safe.

“Disabled the alarm on your window, eh?” Hale says. He’s looming in the half dark corner, incongruous against the band posters and teenage mess. “Not a smart move.”

Being on the run has given him a gauntness and edge that wasn’t there in the newspaper photos. Three of four days worth of stubble stands out on his sharp jaw line. If anything, he’s more magnetically beautiful in person, and he’s pointing a gun at Stiles’ heart.

Stiles curses himself for forgetting the window. He’d done it summers ago, so he could sneak off to Scott’s or the forest after his Dad slept. Just for stupid kid stuff, pretending to be cool. He’s going to die over a smattering of drunken nights and about five spliffs.

“Drop the phone,” Derek says conversationally, and Stiles does.

“Hands where I can see them,” he instructs, and Stiles holds them out like an offering. His panic button is on his key ring, he can feel it heavy in his pocket. All he needs is a moment, if he can push that button his dad will be at the house with backup in seven minutes.

“Downstairs,” Derek says, gesturing with the gun.

 

“I’m Stiles,” Stiles says. He’s head that humanizing yourself is supposed to help in these situations. Make them see you as more than a victim.

“I know who you are,” Derek answers. “You’re the Sheriff’s son.”

 “I’m on the lacrosse team,” Stiles pushes on. “So is Scott, he’s my best friend. Neither of us is very good at it, but I do fine in Engl...”

“Do I look like I care?” One of Derek’s eyebrows is arched in a way that very clearly says ‘no’ and Stile’s panicky terror starts to settle into dread.

 

He has Stiles sit in one of their sturdy kitchen chairs, and ties his hands and feet down with cord. Stiles tries to see it as a good sign – he’ll be alive long enough to tie up at least. Alive for what, though? “Listen, whatever you want from my dad…” he starts to babble.

Derek tears a piece of duck tape off the roll and presses it almost tenderly over Stiles’ mouth. “Shhh,” he says with a hint of mockery. “Are you always this chatty?”

Hostage sorted, Derek sets the gun down and goes to Sheriff Stilinki’s desk. It’s in what used to be the dining room, so he’s still in eyeshot, but he’s distracted now. Methodically, he starts pulling out papers, receipts, old backup CDs. Stiles tries to think, to come up with something. To focus on anything except how he is going to die.

Derek slams a drawer in frustration, and Stiles jerks in the chair. “Sorry,” the murderer mutters, irrationally.

He’s looking for something specific. Something connected to the case, Stiles realizes. There’s a chance that information will somehow be enough to keep him alive, isn’t there? He contorts desperately while Derek is occupied, trying to move his hip up to where he can get a hand in his pocket. Maybe he’s just unlucky, or maybe the keys jangle. Either way, Derek suddenly shoots a glance his way and Stiles freezes, deer in the headlights.

Derek’s eyes narrow menacingly as he walks over. Stiles can hear his own heartbeat drumming hard in his ears.

Derek bends over and runs his hands down Stiles’ thighs. An involuntary pulse of arousal shoots through Stiles’ crotch, totally inappropriate for the situation but there all the same. Derek finds the lump in Stiles’ left pocket, and pulls out the key ring. Stiles can see the exact moment he notices the button.

”Nice try.” He sets them down on the counter, next to the microwave that says 8:28. Then, with a warning glare at his captive, he gets out his phone and walks towards the living room, out of sight.

“Hey its me, I’m in.“ Oh god, Stiles realizes, Kate. “I haven’t found anything.“ A pause. “I know that, I just wanted to see if there was… okay. Okay, yes, I know that.” Another long pause. Stiles just has to last another half hour, a little past. His dad is paranoid, and if Stiles doesn’t call he’ll come, right? Why didn’t he promise, he should have said ‘sure thing, right on the dot, dad,’ why did he just wave, what if help comes too late? He’s crying now, and his nose has started to run.

“Look, he’s still just a kid,” Derek is saying, quick and low now, almost too low to hear. “There’s no need to kill him. He was what, twelve when it happened? He’s a fucking lacrosse player, not a…” Slight pause and then a bark of laughter. “I guess you would.” He says it easy enough, but with an undercurrent of bitterness that leaves an aftertaste like cheap scotch, harsh on the tongue.

Stiles is happy for once that he looks younger than 19, wondering if this is Stockholm syndrome, how thankful he feels that Derek is having second thoughts.  He rolls his mouth against his shoulder, catching the tape on his shirt and pulling it away from his mouth millimeter by painful millimeter. The tears and snot help a bit, keeping it from sticking back down. His heart is hanging out somewhere between his adam’s apple and his front teeth, and he’s thinking _please please please_ , to a vague idea of God, _please let me make it out of this._

“I wasn’t,” Derek snaps. “I know what he did, better than you. I’m going to right now, alright?”

He comes back into view like some classical statue of the god of death, and it’s all Stiles can do to get enough oxygen through his nose despite the terrified sobs wracking his body. “Mmpgednce,” he ties to say through the corner of his mouth that’s free.

“Shut up,” Derek replies flatly. He pulls a small bottle out of his jacket pocket – lighter fluid.

Stiles tries to talk again, more and more frantic – “Mffipence, meffimense!”

“No dice,” Derek says, squirting the liquid into Stiles’ face. “Your dad burns my family, I burn his.” Stiles shakes his head in refusal, unable to take the statement in. “You know I don’t even have pictures of them? Everything burned. Everything.”

Stiles is trying to communicate with just his eyes now that this is all a huge mistake, please, if Derek would just listen… he can feel the cold fluid trickling through his hair, soaking his clothes. He tries not to imagine sizzling flesh.

Derek’s finally satisfied that Stiles is doused enough to go up like a torch and tosses the near empty bottle aside. His eyes rake over his handiwork. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a lighter.

The whole rooms draws down to a pinpoint around that small piece of metal in Derek’s hand, and the only sound is the click of it opening and lighting. Their eyes meet, and Stiles catches the stray thought that at least they’re nice eyes to die looking at, the irrational idea skittering across blank terror and then gone.

The moment stretches out, flame’s reflection flickering in Derek’s eyes. And then in one sudden movement, Derek flips the lighter closed again, face contorted with disgust. He reaches out and rips the duck tape the rest of the way off Stile’s mouth. “Alright, what?”

“Evidence,” Stiles gasps, lips stinging. “Upstairs. My dad keeps everything related to the case in a file box next to his bed, anything about your case is there. It’s not my dad who did it, it’s Kate and you know, you were looking because you know that it doesn’t all add up, it doesn’t make sense that my dad framed you. Whatever she told you doesn’t hold up, because it’s not true. Look at the evidence, its right up…”

“You just want to get me out of the room so you can try something,” Derek interrupts. “You’re just trying to stay alive.”

A hysterical laugh bubbles up through Stiles’ lips. “Yeah, wow! You got me! I care about being alive!”

He manages to pull it together when Derek’s expression darkens. “I swear it’s there. Box by the bed, everything.”

Derek hesitates, visibly wavering, the lighter still in his hand. “Please,” Stiles whimpers, and with a muttered curse, Derek is up the stairs.

 

Stiles can hear a door slam open on the second floor, the shuffle of papers, the sound of boots back down the stairs. Derek drops the box with an inscrutable look at Stiles, and pulls a sheaf of paper out of one of the files. He paces in front of Stiles’ chair, scanning each page and tossing it aside. Scanned photos, statements, Stiles hopes it’s enough.

“This could all be made up,” Derek mutters. “Falsified.”

“You know it’s not,” Stiles says. “Everything in that file is the truth. It doesn’t have to be like this, you can still let me go. I’ll talk to my dad, he…”

“Let you go?”

Stiles gulps, nods shakily.

“And what happens next, I turn myself in for my family’s murder? Go to jail?” Derek asks with a bitter smirk. “Stiles, I think you have me confused with a better man.”

Sudden as a slap in the face, Stiles knows: he’s going to die tonight.

To survive, he would need this stranger to give up on revenge, to acknowledge that he’s complicit in his family’s death, to admit that the woman he loves is responsible and that that he’s become a murderer for nothing. It’s actually laughable, the enormity of what he was expecting. For a second he had thought he was getting out alive, but he won’t. No, despite this little interlude, he’s going to die in agony. 

Derek tosses the rest of the paper down on the floor with a small, flat, slapping noise and picks up the lighter.

“Derek,” Stiles pleads, voice octaves too high and cracking, “You’re… you _are_ … you are a better man, Derek, Please. Derek, you don’t have to do this.“ He knows the cords will hold but he’s struggling anyways, his whole body tensed against the restraints. “You’re better than this, please, _Derek_.”

The older man studies the lighter, flicking it open and shut. Stiles is out of words.

Derek shuts his eyes with a quick shake of his head, like he’s trying to dislodge something. He looks wrecked, fragments of painful emotions skittering across his features too quick to identify.

“Okay,” He says softly, “OK, I’ll just…” And as he takes a step towards Stiles with purpose building in his shoulders the whole room goes sideways.

Only it doesn’t really, it’s Derek tipping over, turning away from Stiles and falling. Stiles had been so completely focused on him that for a second it had seemed like gravity went haywire. And Stiles knows it didn’t really happen like this, he does—but in his memory it’s so quiet, and Derek is turning away and falling as gently as a snowflake, and it’s only after he’s on the floor, face down, that Stiles hears the crack of thunder and shattering glass.

The kitchen window is in glimmering pieces all over the counter and floor, and a slight breeze is coming through the tangled blinds. It’s 9:17.

He still doesn’t understand until the front door is smashed in and two cops in full gear burst into the hall followed by his Dad, who sweeps him into an awkward bear hug.

“It’s okay, we got him,” his father is saying into his ear, but it sounds like it’s coming from so much farther away. Even the hug feels distant. Stiles tries to understand: He’s safe now.

He notices Derek’s arm – it’s twisted behind him, so his hand is resting at the small of his back, like he’s ready for the handcuffs now officer, he’s willing to go quietly. He has such long fingers, strong looking and squared at the tips. Like they could move, could reach for something at any second,

“You’re fine, I gotcha,” his dad is still murmuring, keeping up a comforting patter. “Don’t look, it’s alright. Just look away from the body. You don’t need to see that.”

‘Derek,’ Stiles wants to correct him, not ‘that.’ It’s Derek laying there, and if Stiles can just reach him, get a good look at his face, something… but the pool of blood around him is spreading still, too much blood on too still flesh and Stiles realizes his father is right, he needs to look away. He doesn’t want to see.

 

 ***

 

He’s quiet for weeks after that night – uncharacteristically so. His dad goes from understanding to worried to asking one night at dinner, “Did Derek… do anything to you that night? Before Parish took the shot?”

“What?” Stiles says, louder than he’s said anything for days. Memory of hands on his thighs, the smell of leather and sweat. “No. He didn’t do anything.”

“Well, okay. I’m not a mind reader, you’ve got to tell me what’s wrong.”

Stiles scoops a forkful of peas over to the other side of his plate, mashes them into his potatoes. “I don’t know.” He pushes the peas and potatoes mix around again. “He wasn’t going to kill me.”

The Sheriff leans back. “He wasn’t.”

“Kate had his head twisted, she convinced him that the fire was some huge set-up. He thought you burned them all, or he used to. But he was figuring out not to trust her, don’t you remember the file box downstairs? He was starting to believe me.”

The sheriff’s expression softens around the eyes. “Maybe that’s true. But even so, holding you hostage isn’t the worst of what that man did.”

“He was confused.”

“Doesn’t work like that, kid,” his dad says.

“He wasn’t a monster,” Stiles snaps, shoving his plate away with a clatter. After that dinner they don’t discuss Derek again, and Stiles starts talking like he used to – loud and often. He completes the final assignments that he’d got extensions for and passes his classes. He makes plans to go camping with Scott in July.

Things go back to normal, or close enough.

 

***

 

There’s a grave, but Stiles hasn’t brought flowers. He hasn’t read the inscription, or laid a finger on the marble. He hasn’t gone there at all. He knows instinctively that if he sees that grave he’d feel something other than anger, and ever since the argument with his dad that’s all he’s felt about Derek’s death. Anger is the only thing that makes sense, anger has settled into his bones and grounded him.

 

Derek’s been dead about two months when Kate goes down in a firefight. Matter of time, his father says. She’d gotten too bold, with nobody to hold her back since, well. He trails off. “Since we shot her partner in crime,” Stiles finishes for him.

Stiles does go to _her_ grave. The Argents have it done up nice – she was a victim too, they’re saying. Mental illness, raised by a violent, delusional father. _Boo hoo_ , Stiles thinks. They have a three-foot cement angel for her and a pretty quote about God’s infinite forgiveness.

He comes back that night with his bat and takes a swing at the chintzy statue’s bland face. The crunch feels good, but not enough. _Too much blood and too still flesh_. He swings again, solid impact in his shoulders as one of the wings fractures. With another swing it crumbles, bits of concrete hitting the grass with a flat, dull patter.

“You bitch,” Stiles hisses, under his breath. He’s not even aiming for the fragile parts anymore, just swinging wildly for the sake of damaging something. “Fucking. Goddamn. BITCH.”

In the burning ache building through his shoulders are the what-ifs and might-have-beens. What if Derek had seen through her before the other murders. What if he caught on before the fire. They might have been friends. They might have been more.

The tip of the bat drops to the ground, and Stiles leans on it, panting. His arms hurt, and so does his throat from the strain of not crying. He can’t let himself do that, even now. Alone in the dark, desecrating a grave like a nutcase, this is as close as he’s going to get to closure. Scott doesn’t get it, he can’t talk about it with his Dad. All he has are these private aches, the empty outline of something wonderful that was snuffed out of existence with details yet unformed, some golden idea that's forever out of Stiles' reach.

**Author's Note:**

>  _So if you think you've seen this tumblr post, help a girl out and link it in the comments: It was the MOST BEAUTIFUL gifset/ fic prompt with Derek when he was threatening Chris with the lighter intercut with Stiles tied up on Melissa’s couch and the prompt was something like, "hitman Derek almost feels guilty about killing the Sheriff’s son…" and it was PERFECT and I wrote this FIC for it and then I closed the tab and now I cant FIND IT! Augh!!_ FOUND: http://wckdcure.tumblr.com/post/86365748142
> 
> If you haven't seen that tumblr post, just leave a comment calling me a monster because that's kind of what I was going for with this one.


End file.
